One of the most important environmental issues in Europe is the expansion of wildland-urban interfaces (WUIs) and how this trend may affect the occurrence of wildfires. Land use changes, the abandonment of farmland, and reduced grazing has led to an increase in forested areas with an accumulation and continuity of surface fuels available for combustion. Policies based exclusively on extensive f...

Communities and ecosystems in the Alaskan boreal forest are undergoing substantial change. People contribute to this change. They are also impacted by the consequences. For example, wildfire and spruce bark beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) outbreaks have increased in frequency and severity due to warming trends, affecting the ecosystem and services important to people. I conducted a study to ex...

The number of smoking-caused wildfires has been falling nationwide. In national forests in 2011, smokingcaused wildfires represented only 10% of their 1980 level. No other cause of wildfire has experienced this level of decline. For 12 states, we evaluate the rate of smoking-caused wildfires and find it is a function of weather, other ignitions, the number of adult smokers, the presence of impr...

[1] The controls of forest vegetation, wildfires, and harvest vegetation disturbances on the frequency and magnitude of sediment delivery from a small watershed ( 3.9 km) in the Idaho batholith are investigated through numerical modeling. The model simulates soil development based on continuous bedrock weathering and the divergence of diffusive sediment transport on hillslopes. Soil removal is ...

Wildfires traditionally have been regarded as a threat to many of the multiple resources produced by forest lands. Timber, fish, recreation, and water are all important forest products that can be adversely affected by wildfires. The greatest threat, however, is to the long-term productivity of the land. Foresters are particularly aware of this threat because the production of their primary cro...

Wildfire is globally an important ecological disturbance affecting biochemical cycles and vegetation composition, but also puts people and their homes at risk. Suppressing wildfires has detrimental ecological effects and can promote larger and more intense wildfires when fuels accumulate, which increases the threat to buildings in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Yet, when wildfires occur, t...